


Cartographers

by Apostrophic



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Love, Sex, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 17:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5213984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apostrophic/pseuds/Apostrophic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He gets obsessed like that. Absorbed. Fixated. He marvels.</em>
</p><p>Eight short vignettes, unstuck in time. Sex and love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cartographers

**Author's Note:**

> _“Contour lines and fathom-markings, cross-hatchings and colors where before there were only blank spaces on the map.”_  
>  — Thomas Pynchon, _V_

He loves watching her face. He has done that for so long, watching her face, that it is not a lesser thing, he is not deprived of something greater as both her hands slip beneath the covers and he leaves them where they are— the covers— and watches only her face. She watches him too, at least while she can, her eyes drifting finally closed, head arched back, until she feels him then. His hand on hers, beneath the covers. Discerning by feel what she’s doing and her eyes come open again. He’s still watching her face.

 

* * *

 

Not that he does that all the time. He also does this: discards all the covers, crawls down, asks her to show him while he watches intently, only that. His hand holding the inside of her knee, crooked away from him. Occasionally placing a kiss to that tender spot on the inside of her knee. But mostly he won’t tear his eyes away. He gets obsessed like that. Absorbed. Fixated. He marvels.

 

* * *

 

He does this too: sitting upright in bed against the headboard, her sitting back against him, between his legs, his hand between hers. When she squirms, tries to reach down, he catches both her hands with one of his and locks his arm tight over her chest, holding her down, restricting her. She squirms and slides down, her hair catching on his chest, slumped against him in pleasure as she tries to take all of this, all of it, all.

 

* * *

 

He is stronger than her but he lets her believe it, flat on his back, all of her weight pinning his arms back over his head. He lets her believe it because it’s true, it’s the power she has over him, has had for so long. She grinds and he grits his teeth, letting her have what she wants— him. Always him.

 

* * *

 

He laughs. He bites down gently, her nipple a pebble in the pool of his mouth, and feeling his laugh she laughs too. She is talking, not dirty, mundane— planning their trip to Arkansas later that week, where they will work, work, and try to do everything but this. Her hand cups the back of his head, tender. He takes his time, lazy, smiling.

 

* * *

 

I don’t think this works.

What doesn’t work?

I don’t think this works.

She means, this position. He grunts, hauls her higher, her hand slamming back until she feels the cabinet and can catch hold of the handle, giving them leverage. Okay, there. It works.

 

* * *

 

Tying up is not a thing they like; too close to reality, too close to things other people do to them, not things they would do to each other. But he has her flat on her back in his bed, peeling her sweater off over her head, and it catches there, a tangle, with her wrists. He pretends it does; she pretends it could hold her, it’s something she couldn’t escape, as he leaves her hands there to strip off her skirt, haul her roughly, wantonly, into his mouth.

 

* * *

 

Please, she whispers to him when she wants him inside her. Please, she whispers again. He cups her face gently and lets her do it all, just what she wants. She takes him in slowly. Maddeningly slowly. He runs one hand down the line of her throat, cups her breast, holds it, then runs back up her throat. His hand flat there, not pushing, not pulling, just touching as she takes him all in. He loves watching her face.


End file.
